Talk:Proposed Feats

Oh, I'd forgotten all about these! Maybe I'll give them another look and approve some. -gm

Between Great Trip and Defensive Trip, I think I like the latter a tad more. While the idea of being able to double-trip is pretty sweet, it's really hard to balance the huge advantage knocking a guy prone gives without making the second trip more-or-less impossible to connect (although, on the sum, I think Great Trip manages it). Also, Defensive Trip reduces the number of die rolls in a given combat, which is always a great thing. Pole Fighting, too, I enjoy, but it's definitely powerful, essentially making whatever polearm you have focused into a better version of a quarterstaff, and removing most of the disadvantage reach weapons have. -Slitherrr

These mimic my own thoughts on the matter, although I don't find the Pole Fighting too bad: it's very similar to something in the Polearm issue of Dragon Magazine. My main reason for not including it isn't that it detracts from the disadvantages of the polearm, but rather it kind of renders invalid the whole Sentinel prestige. -gm

Well, the Sentinel gets the full damage from his weapon, rather than getting quarterstaff damage, so there's that. Also, the long-range mode. But yeah, a little too close to that class for comfort. -Slitherrr

FWiW, I considered replacing the Sentinel ability with this feat, and I guess that's technically not off the table. I really am a fan of the "don't have to roll to drop weapon" feat, moreso since you appealed to the sweetest of my sweet spots - less dice rolling! If it becomes existant, it'll obviously be a Sentinel bonus feat. -gm

---

The first two sprung forth from my twisted brain, the second two I found after a bit of searching on the D&D wiki. I tried to model the first two on the Cleave chain. Since Cleave only happens on the relatively constricted event of an opponent's death, the Great Trip is more useful, so I put in the -4 per extra opponent restriction to try to even it up. -Slitherrr

Of course, the continued -4 per opponent makes it start to be pretty useless after a couple of enemies. Perhaps Grand Trip should reduce it to -2. -Slitherrr

Hey Msallen, Matt said to point the combat intimidation feat to you. We're both of the opinion that it's overpowered as written, with a further addendum from him that a free action adds a whole lot of dice rolls. By itself, though, the Fighter class skill Intimidate could use a boost, like Improved Feint does with that. Perhaps cut it to making Intimidate checks as a move action, and ditch the demoralize all who are threatened capability? It's hard to weigh the effect of the saving throw and attack roll debuff against the DC loss and ability to perform sneak attacks, so such a feat might need a little more oomph to roll with that crowd. -Slitherrr

I think I'm with you guys. Actually looking at it briefly, the intimidate combat use might be better than bluff. I only have limited info here at work, but it looks like this is the breakdown:

demoralize: shaken (-2 attacks, saves, and ability checks) for 1 round

feint: flat-footed (no dex bonus, sneak attackable) for the feinting player's next attack

I'm not sure if I've got it wrong, but it looks like bluff only works for the player using the skill, whereas everyone gets the benefit of the intimidate use. In which case, I would think that making the demoralize a move action will bring it in line in terms of power with the feint feat. The AoE intimidate, and perhaps also a 'flat-footed for a round' bluff feat, would be good improved versions.

Good point, I didn't even see the player-only bit. It still means lots of rolls, but so does feint--gm will just have to hope nobody uses either of them! -Slitherrr

Me either :( I just took it off my 'feats for germain' list because it went from being a cool skill-based debuff to useless. I might have to work up my intimidate, on the other hand. On the subject of rolling, it would be perfectly reasonable to house-rule opposed checks so that one side is just a target number. Ie. feinting could just be a bluff check against a target number 10 + opponents sense motive. I never much liked opposed checks in 3.5 for statistical reasons.

Changed into new proposed feats. Combat Intimidation is now two feats, with the second giving the option of debuffing all threatened opponents as a standard action. I made an improved Improved Feint in the same vein. Making it a standard action is provisional, because that would tend to mean that your best fighter (the guy with all those ranks in Intimidate) has to spend his action debuffing. It may be better suited as a move action. And yeah, opposed checks are annoying both statistically and dice-wise, but they also allow those clutch "I succeeded by rolling a 20 when he rolled a 1!" moments-Slitherrr

Do you think requiring sneak attack on greater feint makes sense? I would do BaB + imp. feint instead. Here is the pathfinder version of the feat, which is basically identical to ours (PF gets rid of flat-footed, but you can sneak attack anyone denied dex bonus). --Msallen 11:46, 29 December 2009 (EST)

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/greater-feint-combat---final

That's what flat-footed is, essentially, so I guess Pathfinder just opted for the simpler route of not using a special name for the particular situation. One thing that FGII really needs are state tickers that automatically decrement effects when the appropriate initiative comes up. -Slitherrr

Well, they kept flat-footed, and most of the other conditions and status effects, so I'm not really sure what their M.O. is. It looks like they gave flat-footed some more effects about opportunity attacks and such that they didn't want to make part of feint? --Msallen 13:50, 29 December 2009 (EST)

EDIT WARS! You mother fuckers are going to play around and get this shit locked.

The bluff/feint also takes a standard action, so you give up one attack to make the next one flat-footed so it really does not add any new rolls (it replaces one or more attacks with one simple contested check - bluff vs. sense motive) Now, the whole shaken thing is a feature of the intimidate skill as a standard action, which is - if anything - underpowered as hell. (Give up your attacks for ONE round of shaken? Please.) My biggest problem with making it a free action, or any action that is going to happen with regularity, is that the mechanics involves relatively* complex calculations that will eat up clock, in a way that feints do not, rather than any real game balance issues. (Since the shaken state lasts almost no time at all)

* relative to, say, AC or a simple skill check, which use values already on your sheet, relatively unchanging and consistent. The Intimidate mechanics means calculating values using two different sheets, then futzing through opposed rolls that are modifier-heavy. Will likely add 20% to the length of combats, no lie. It is for this reason, above all others, I do not like it. Balance wise it makes intimidating in combat actually something useful. (That 1 round duration is the pits) -gm

"Your Intimidate check is opposed by the target’s modified level check (1d20 + character level or Hit Dice + target’s Wisdom bonus [if any] + target’s modifiers on saves against fear)."

Now, that doesn't sound like that much, but imagine it in our last boss fight. A boss kobold, a boss goblin, vanilla goblins, and vanilla kobolds, all with different values for CR and Wis and, in some cases, modifiers for size and fear that change from *round to round*. It's not that such calculations are really difficult, but in aggregate I have a feeling it will bog down the already laggy 3.5e combats. -gm

Why do edits confuse you so much? In any case, this isn't the complaint I was thinking it was. There probably isn't any way to make 3.5 less confusing or annoying in this respect. 4.0 pretty much fixed it, and pathfinder made it a little more standardized (with the 10+(level/2)+wis mod model more heavily used), but 3.5 your fucked. If you don't want to deal with this stuff, just scrap the feats. That said, as a general debuf as a move action, both are usable feats. --Msallen 11:21, 29 December 2009 (EST)

Maybe rather than debuffing a whole squad for an action, put a condition on it (like, killed an ally), and make it last X number of turns, or something. So, for the language, "When slaying an opponent, you may opt to make an Intimidate check against a DC of (10 + opponent's Will save + fear modifiers) against all opponents you threaten. Any opponents who fail this check will be shaken for 3 turns.". Keeping track of which opponents are still shaken will be a pain, but at least the check won't be happening every turn. -Slitherrr

Balance isn't really the issue to me, not on a day's reflection. It's not too annoying or too confusing in general, but making the intimidate into a free action will cause these sort of calcs to be made regularly/every attack (horrible) rather than situational (great!) and having to keep track of a ton of different statuses is pretty much a nightmare scenario when you're talking about already running upwards of 30 different oppoenents. Germain has made good use of the Feint before, and it really doesn't drag things out. Gil doing Fear + Attack every turn? Much more of a slow down. . . I admit, when first proposed, I was worried about game balance, but looking at it and thinking about it (1 round?!?!) I think, if anything, that the feat makes that intimidate ability useful/up-to-grade level, but I just think combat is too slow as it is. So, yeah, my only real problem is I think this feat will detract from player's enjoyment because it will (1) slow down combats because of tons more rolling, (2) slow down combat because of a lot more maths, and (3) generate monumentally more bookkeeping for me, which will lower the FPS of the entire session. -gm

As to the edit thing - this is like the *third time* I've had to try *more than twice* to post the same comments. -gm

WRT the feat, you do know that this is all in keeping with the 'improved feint' feat, which lets you feint as a move action? So, with either feat, you could both feint/demoralize and attack every round. Not that it changes anything you say, but it wasn't clear to me whether you understood that --Msallen 15:23, 29 December 2009 (EST)

Alright! Let's (finally) take a look at this page.

* Great Trip. Nice feat, actually. Needs higher BaB Req (+5-6?) and possibly Dex instead of strength. I can see, however, where this could potentially become abusive when paired with Combat Reflexes. (Hell, might even be worth making that a prereq, as well)

* Intimidate Feats: Nice. Well balanced without being excessively dice rolly. I would not even mind seeing Imp. Combat Intimidation have a radius range, maybe at the cost of making it a full action? Hmmm.

* Greater Feint : Doesn't seem terribly unbalanced, just seems like one more cooldown thing I'll have to keep up with in combat. Hmm.

* Defensive Trip : This one is not bad, but I'd prefer only one of the two trip feats go live.

**Agreed. -Slitherrr

* Inspiring Leader : AoE Buffs are spells or class abilities only. :)

* Instant Awakening : I like the idea, but the mechanics are puzzling to me. Why a REFLEX save to wake up instantly, for example?

** Reflexes kind of represent a second-sense idea, where you start moving before you're fully aware. It makes perfect sense to me. -Slitherrr

*** Ah, I can see that. I was thinking more will, because it's a snapping to awareness sort of thing. I guess either are alright, but whatevs, it's a workable concept, one way or the other. -gm

**** Well, I always saw the snapping to awareness part of Will as more of a "fighting off" the effect that's causing the altered mental state, rather than just becoming aware that it exists. For me, if I were trying to come awake when something is trying to keep me asleep, it'd be Will, but if I were trying to come awake in reaction to something happening around me, it'd be Reflex (assuming that it isn't Spot or Listen, but you know what I mean.) -Slitherrr

***** Ah, yeah, that makes sense.

* Spear and Shield : I love this feat more than chocolate, as is.

* Pole Fighting: Don't mind it, like the idea. Think, probably, weapon focus in a specific polearm would make me happier with it.

---

Knockback Kick: The unarmed man's Improved Bull Rush. No +4 to the roll, but no requirement to follow the defender, and option to use Dexterity. Requires that the attack be unarmed, though, but I couldn't decide if that warranted further bonuses, since a person taking this feat probably already has compensatory abilities to make unarmed combat less of a pain. -Slitherrr

Actually, scratch that, the non-moving thing means neither provoke AoO from other people, so it's probably perfect balance-wise. -Slitherrr

I wonder how complex this would be "in the moment." Seems like it might be complicated? <math>Insert formula here</math>

No more complicated than a standard Bull Rush, which is initiate attack by stepping into square (provoking AoO; AoO by non-participants has 25% chance of hitting the guy they're not targeting), perform Str check (size- and stability-modified, +4 if have Imp Bull Rush). If failure, move back into original square. If success, move opponent back up to five feet for every five by which attacker's roll exceeded defender's roll (and move yourself for every extra five feet), and provoke AoO with each square (can choose how far to send back). Imp Bull Rush prevents the defender from getting an AoO and adds +4 to the roll. Thinking about it in these terms may mean that the Kick is a bit powerful, since it prevents all those secondary AoOs. Perhaps it could be taken with a minus to the opposed check, since the attacker doesn't continue actively pushing against the defender? -Slitherrr